Description

International Karate + (IK+) is a simple side-on beat 'em up. 3 characters appear on the screen - either 1 player and 2 AI, or 2 player and 1 AI - and proceed to kick seven bells out of each other via various karate moves.

Each of the moves scores a different number of points and if you come last in a particular round you are eliminated.

There are some sub-games too, involving your karate-master holding a shield and defending himself against bouncing balls from both directions, and kicking bombs off the screen before they explode.

Development

The backflip animation was based on the fairground scene at the end of the movie Grease, where one of the background dancers performs a backflip. Archer Maclean placed cellophane over the TV, drew the dancer outline frame-by-frame (using a special video-recorder) and then put the result over a computer screen to recreate each image in pixels.

Trouser Move

Tapping the "T" key makes everyone's trousers fall down. Just goes to show that a black belt is only for display...

This move was so popular that, when the Amiga version was ported to the CD32 console in 1994, one of the controller's buttons was used to activate it. In Ignition's 2003 PlayStation port, it was also included. It can be activated with the Select button. This was also included on the Game Boy Advance version, also by Ignition, and is activated with the Select button as well.

Awards

Amiga Power

May 1991 (Issue #00) - #60 in the "All Time Top 100 Amiga Games"

Commodore Format

March 1991 (Issue 6) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)